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Back when I was a wee lassie, coquettishly romping about Mississippi’s endless heathery moors, the distant sounds of Clannad luring me further and further away from the biscuits and gravy that were, metaphorically, my prepubescent domestic life–back then, if someone had told me that the better part of my adult life would be spent lacing half-cocked drag queens into thousand-dollar corsets at 2am, a lit cigarette dangling from my freshly rouged lips, a half-full glass of red wine sloshing dangerously in my right hand…well, if someone had told me that, I’d have laughed.

I’m not laughing now.

…and in case you’re wondering, last night’s show rocked. If you’re nearby, Hedwig requests your presence. Well, perhaps requests is the wrong word. Try DEMANDS….

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Une Tranche de la Vie de Richard

1. Hedwig is finally coming together. After the first run yesterday, I was a terrified: flat out, it wasn’t working. But later on, after our diva’d had a couple of drinks, it started clicking. Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve got a show….

2. Depeche Mode is shooting a video in our parking lot, just outside my window.

3. The pain in my shoulders is killing me. Seriously. Any of you know how to Rolf?

4. Once again, I can attest to the miraculous effects of ginger tea.

5. Within the past 24 hours, my boyfriend has taken great delight in comparing me to certain other theatre producers who can only be described as “cunty.” I am hurt and dismissive, but I wonder if there isn’t some truth to his accusations…. Nah.

6. I need new shoes.

7. News flash: I enjoy carbohydrates. In fact, I think I’d like some now. In the form of pizza, please.

8. I have officially run out of clothes to wear. Looks like it’s time for another run to Thrift City. Maybe I’ll wait for our houseguests and make an outing of it.

9. I have recently concluded–say, within the past month–that I have never been nor will I ever be skinny. I will always be chunky. Sorry, boyfriend.

10. I don’t like it when people yell at me. And I don’t like to yell back. Unless I have to.

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Funny, I was just thinking I could use a weekend jaunt to Pensacola after Hedwig get’s up and running. But then again, maybe not.

Side note: as those who’ve read the bio know, my father was very nearly attacked by a large blue shark on my parents’ honeymoon. In Pensacola.

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For most of my life, I’ve been accused of being too serious. Accused that I have a sense of humor so dry it could make New Orleans arid. Told that, in fact, I’m not funny at all.

Every so often, I see truth in these assertions–especially when Dr. and Mrs. Eek get fan mail:

Hi Folks!

What a neat web site you have! I just knew there were some not-so-straight-

laced-bible-belters who lived among us here in the valley. And I’ve lived

here most of my life and didn’t know about the coal gasification plant!

I live down at Prairie Creek. I’d love to meet you both sometime.

Anyway, kudos on the web site,

(Name Omitted to Protect the Sarcasm-Challenged)

I mean, it’s 2001. Doesn’t everyone have a highly developed sense of irony by now?

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I’m still not sure why I was asked to write this article (for a print mag that shall remain nameless). I mean, have any of you been to Pride in New Orleans? It’s about as festive as a political rally in support of child pornography. In Algeria. During Ramadan. But not quite as visible.

Still, it’s written. And that means it’s a post waiting to happen. Knock yourselves out.

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A Recap of the Paft Several Days
Being in Reduced Form a Summation of Events Having Come to Pafs Since This Paft Sunday, The Tyme at Which the Sturtle Had Composed His Moft Recent Entry to This Journale

The Goode

1. I had a delightful date with the Boyfriend Tuesday eve.

2. Upon the delightful date in question, the Boyfriend and I saw Moulin Rouge, which I enjoyed for three very specific reasons:

2a. The film’s art direction was thorough and unique; it was so very over the top that it became quite literally fantastic. In contrast, consider some other recent, dismal, celluloid crap like Boogie Nights, which was also driven by its art direction, but haphazardly; the art director kept waffling between camp (note the abundance of Farrah/Bruce Lee posters) and realism (note the cocaine and the buckets of prop blood).

2b. Moulin Rouge serves as a magnificent harbinger of post-camp–possibly post-irony, or at least a new sort of not-so-cynical irony. All those magnificently silly love songs could have been camped up to the high heavens, but with the possible exception of the “Like a Virgin” number, they were done earnestly, very straightforward–no wink at the audience, no backing away from the emotional weight of the text. Perhaps it’s okay to have feelings again…

2c. They inserted a joke about Ewan McGregor’s legendarily “huge talent”.

3. Hedwig sounds great. Our band rocks.

4. We’ve got recently acquired a number of new cabaret performers.

5. I spent a wee bit of time with Ralph, whom I’ve otherwise neglected.

The Badd

1. Too much rehearsal and not enough sleep makes Sturtle a cranky boy. In the immortal words of Jim Backus, I need a vacation.

2. I’m experiencing a serious case of writer’s block on this one piece I’m penning for the cabaret. I guess I’m just not inspired. If any of you have a short, say, five minute comic sketch that might be appropriate for a cabaret set in Paris during the Roaring Twenties, send it on. (FYI, the piece I’m working on now is between a wisecracking flapper girl with swell gams and a skirt-chasing rube.)

3. I don’t have the opportunity to read as much as I’d like.

4. I was never–nor will I ever be–a professional golfer (can’t take it seriously), gymnast (too uncoordinated), or pianist (stubby fingers). Tennis, however, isn’t entirely out of the question.

5. The future’s very bright, but I’ve lost my cheap shades.

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It’s funny: even the Chelsea fags I know sneer at Chelsea fags. Like, no one actually believes they themselves fit the stereotype. Same way with Circuit queens. “Oh, yeah, I’m going to Pensacola for Memorial Day weekend,” says a buff, waxed, tanned, tribally tattooed friend, the earphones dangling around his neck pumping a tinny Danny Tenaglia megamix. “I mean, I’m not into that whole Circuit scene, but it’s a good party.”

Fact of the matter is, I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who identifies with those stereotypes. Everyone’s always criticizing them, and now the New York Times–in concert with queer crooner/slender-bender Rufus Wainwright–has contributed its two cents.

My point is, by the time the Times starts spouting opinions on something like this, isn’t it ipso facto old news? It reeks of staleness, like a Monica Lewinsky joke. Which, of course, just confirms what I already knew:

1. The Chelsea fags have become the 21st century equivalent of the West Village piano bar queens, content with their tats and their gym memberships and their marketing jobs and their home lives and their cats and their homes on Fire Island.

2. The new homo hipsters–the anti-clone rebels like Mr. Wainwright–are reputedly the East Villagers, sporting slightly different tattoos and membership cards for more “authentic” gyms, toting iMacs for their web design work, and dancing to rock-and-roll instead of 4/4 techno

3. Because points 1 & 2 are confirmed by no less than the Gray Lady herself, it follows that the East crowd itself is growing/has grown tiresome, too, which means it must be time for a reductive musical about their tastefully squalid lives–oh, wait, it’s happened already: Rent…. Perhaps a new one’s in order, though–one with a West Side Story, Sharks vs. Jets showdown climax on the sidewalk in front of Big Cup, with a slightly buffer, inked-up Rufus caught on a payphone in the middle. I got the book–who wants to take a stab at the lyrics?